Safe
by winglessburst
Summary: Latia Menendez is haunted by nightmares of a fire and the mystery of the person who saved her from it. Who are the children from her past that she can barely remember? All she can remember is a smiling girl and the boy with the ice blue eyes.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Running. I am running away. I was saved from the flames of a fire. "Forget. Forget me. Forget this all." A familiar girl's voice says. "Go back to your normal life. For me, and for him, and most importantly for you." She says while her blurry face fades in and out before completely disappearing altogether.

I wake up in a cold sweat gasping for air. The burn on my left arm is sore along with the massive headache I could feel coming on. "Shit." I mutter to myself as I sit up and hold my head in my hands. The room around me is blurry just like that dream. A sob escapes my throat and I realize why everything is hard to see. I am crying, just like that night that I can barely remember. I take a few deep breaths and calm myself while I wipe away the tears. After I calm myself down I climb out of bed with a sigh and flick the light switch on by the bathroom door on my right. I stumble to the sink feeling weak like I just stepped out of a desert. Splash! I throw cool water on my face and wash away the sweat attempting to clog my pores. The water feels amazing and wakes me up. Standing strait I grab for the towel that should be to my right…AH, got it. I wipe my face gently and shut off the water. The other 'me' in the mirror doesn't look as tired and sick as I feel. I have been battling a cold for the past week and it has been waking me up with nightmares every night since it started. By now I would have gone to the doctors and gotten some sleep and cold medication prescribed to me but these nightmares have been giving me crazy inspiration for my next piece, a wolf howling at the moon.

I leave the bathroom, shutting the light off behind me, and grab my sketchbook from my nightstand. This time I have the image of three little children standing side by side. One of them is me. The other two are a mystery. The little girl to my right hanging off of my arm smiling as if she had won a prize reminds me of the blurry girl in my dreams. In my dreams we are older, about the age when I got this mysterious burn in the first place. I make us taller filling in the blurs with the little girl from my memories. Then I work on the third mysterious child. His outline is vague and I am unable to fill in any defining features except his eyes. Those ice blue eyes that I could not forget even if I tried. They burned through my entire being, permeated into every dream and waking memory. I will probably never forget those eyes and the way they make me feel safe and alive. I sigh at the sketch before me of the two grown women smiling arm in arm next to the little boy with the ice blue eyes forever accompanied with a frown.

Frustrated I slam my sketchbook shut and throw it onto my nightstand as my eyes droop. Exhaustion was finally settling back in. I glance at my alarm clock to see the red numbers read 3:22. I climb back under my covers and close my eyes already slipping back into the nightmare, feeling the heat of the flames lick up towards me, and the girl who saved my life.

* * *

My alarm clock rings knocking me out of a deep sleep. It reads 11:15. Sunlight streams in through my windows on either side of my bed letting me know that it is daytime. Feeling well rested I stretch and grab it off my nightstand to find the off button. I can never seem to remember where it is even though I have had this since grade school. So of course it was purple and Dora themed. Finally I find the switch and turn it off before setting it back down. Swish! That is the sound of the covers as I fling them off me and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Led by my growling stomach I head to the kitchen and pour myself a bowl of cereal. Using coconut-almond milk of course. I heat some water for tea while I flip on the TV. The news hums in the background as I munch on my cereal and wait for the water to boil. All of a sudden the words scrolling on the bottom of the screen register in my brain. 'Previous Beacon Hills resident Laura Hale, was found dead last night. Anyone with any information is urged to call this number.' Why does that name send chills down my spine and tears to my eyes? Suddenly I hear the word murdered and glance at the screen to see police cleaning up a crime scene and the picture of a girl in the corner of the screen reading, Laura Hale. I feel the bowl slip through my fingers but I don't care. My body jumps away from the impact and scurries to my sketchpad. I grab it and flip to the sketch I had drawn last night as I run back to the TV. The picture is still there and I hold my sketch up to it unnecessarily. I already knew what I was trying to prove. I finally know who saved me that night, and she has been murdered.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Footsteps, my own, walk towards the doors of a building I have only been in once, Beacon Hills Police Department. My hands shake as I reach up to open the door. Whether they are shaking because of nerves or fear I haven't yet figured out, but they were shaking. The tremors moved throughout my entire body as I got closer and closer to the front desk and was greeted by a disgruntled officer.

"Can I help you miss?" Could he? Why did I come here again? Would I really be able to get all of the answers I needed here? "Miss?" He is looking at me with more focus now probably noticing the shaking of my hands and knees.

"Um, I hope so. I, uh, well, I knew Laura Hale when we were kids and I would like to pay my respects to the family. Unfortunately I could find their address anywhere. I was wondering if you had anything on record that you could share with me of their whereabouts."

"You knew the Hales huh? Well, Lady you are in luck. We have her younger brother, Derek, being questioned right now. I'm sure if you wait here you'll be able to pay your condolences before the day ends." He says pointing to a group of chairs closer to the doors. I glance towards them and nod my thanks with a small smile before sitting down closest to the door. The fresh air that wafted in helped to calm me slightly. This building brought back so many incomplete memories. The fire, most of all. I tried to will the horrible images away as I waited, staring at the clock on the other side of the room. After a half hour of waiting a door opened silencing the room. First an officer walked out looking frustrated. Then a younger man dressed mostly in black and a smug smile passed him making a beeline for the exit.

"Stay in town, Derek. I mean it!" The officer calls after him. Derek? This must be Laura's little brother. Perhaps he knew something about the boy with the blue eyes. I stand up finally steady, determination fueling my courage, and walk over to him. Just before I get close enough to say anything our eyes lock and it feels like a shock storms its way through my entire being. I gasp and double over almost in pain as my breath whooshes out of me much too quickly. The floor below me begins to swing and roll as I fall towards it. My hands fly out bracing for impact but the blow never comes and then I see nothing except ice blue eyes and a horrible fire surrounding everything I love.

The weird rhythmic tapping is the first thing I hear when I come to. I am laid out in a hospital bed but instead of the heart monitor I hear what I now know is the anxious tapping of a foot against the ground. I quickly sit up and hop out of the bed trying not to think about how much I hate this hospital. I am met with surprised, eerily familiar, ice blue eye. "We're in the hospital." He says as if he thinks that will calm me.

"I need to get out of here." The words sound panicked and frantic.

"Look, I'm not here to babysit you or anything. The cops made me bring you saying that you were a friend of Laura's and I owed it to you to make sure you were ok. Since you are obviously fine, I'm outta here." He says harshly.

"Wait, I… I did want to talk to you. Well anyone in Laura's family."

"What about?"

"Um…well..." I scratch at my arm nervously pulling up my sleeve with the movement. Almost too quickly for me to see Derek Hale grabs my wrist and is now closely examining my burn scar.

"Where did you get this?" The severity of his tone takes me aback.

"A … fire." I almost say it like a question. He glances at me and then suddenly he seems to lose interest and lets my arm fall back to my side.

"Look, I don't know what you were hoping to do by speaking to me but I have nothing to tell you. Except that you should just leave me and my family alone. For your own sake, we don't like strangers." He says and starts to brush past me. I sidestep in front of him feeling a bit angry.

"I'm not a stranger. I used to play with both Laura and you when we were kids. I was there the night of the fire, we both were." I say taking a shot in the dark with most of that sentence. Mostly I remembered the fire and the feelings of closeness I had when I thought about the people in my dreams. This brought him up short for a second and he opened his mouth like he was going to say something and, just as quickly closed it and brushed past me striding towards the door.

"Laura and I never had any childhood friends when we were kids, it was just us. Again, I'm warning you, don't seek me out. Whatever claim you think you have to Laura or me does not exist." His words are cold and complete crush me. I feel a part of me breaking off and disappearing as I look at his back getting smaller and smaller. But in the next second I hear something, something that changes everything about how my life was supposed to be, just two uttered words floating to me quietly but clearly. "Goodbye, Latia." He does remember, why would he lie? How did I hear that?


End file.
